Proton halves model range and drops prices

PROTON Cars Australia has announced a streamlined model line-up with driveaway pricing as well as changes to its aftersales servicing for its remaining vehicles.

Proton's Gen2 city-car, Persona small sedan (based on the Gen2) and S16 sedan have been discontinued after all existing stock was sold, leaving the Exora people-mover, Suprima S hatchback and Preve sedan as the only models still offered by the Malaysian car-maker.

Sales for the three outgoing models have slowed this year, with Persona moving 67 units, Gen2 selling 49 vehicles and S16 selling 173 cars to the end of November, contributing 289 units to Proton's overall 765 cars sold.

The ageing Gen2 was introduced to the Australian market in October 2004, while the last update to the Persona was in May 2008.

Both models missed out on traction and electronic stability control, making them ineligible for sale in Victoria after January 1, 2011, while ESC became mandatory throughout the rest of the country in November last year.

The Proton S16 first came to Australia in December 2009 and was advertised at the time as the cheapest car on the market.

Proton has reposition its existing models with new driveaway prices for its 2013 and 2014 range.

Of the remaining models, the 2013 Preve GX receives the biggest price cut – from $18,990 to $14,990 in manual guise and $20,990 to $16,990 for the automatic – a $4000 drop in price.

The turbocharged Preve GXR also benefits from a significant $2600 price drop, now $21,390 down from $23,990.

The automatic-only seven-seat Exora GX and GXR drop from $25,990 to $24,390 and $27,990 to $26,390 respectively, a saving of $1600.

Proton's flagship 2014 Suprima S hatchback range also gets a $1600 price cut, with the GX variant now $20,190, down from $21,790, and the GXR priced at $24,990, down from $26,590.

Metallic paint can be optioned on all models for an extra $490.

Aftersales support has also been tweaked with Proton replacing its five-years free scheduled servicing with five-years capped-priced scheduled servicing, a five-year warranty and five-year 24-hour roadside assist.

Service pricing ranges from $170.50 for the one month/1000km service on both manual and automatic vehicles and up to $451 (manual) and $616 (automatic) for the 48 month/60,000km service.

Over the period of five years, total servicing costs for a manual and automatic Proton will be $1,716 and $1870 respectively.

Sales of Proton's remaining models have remained relatively low in 2014 when compared with more mainstream Japanese and Korean fare, with the Preve the top-seller in the range on 305 units, followed by the Exora with 113 and the Suprima S on 58 sales to the end of November this year.

The Malaysian car-maker's overall sales are sitting at 765 units in the first 11 months of the year, an increase of 33.7% over the same 11 month period last year when it had shifted 572 vehicles.